Psychotherapy beyond the Magic

Short talk at Mukilteo Chamber – Meet Up Network Group in January the 6th 2016

You find the slides on the bottom of the page in clickable format.

Thank you very much for having me! Good morning everyone!

My name is Zita Fekete, my business is Sound Soul Counseling. This is a psychotherapy business, and today I am absolutely delighted to share my delusions about psychotherapy.

So, this presentation was made for a longer talk, so what I can do today: just skip many-many slides and focus on one, which I think is the most important for you: I would like to share with you what I think about what is working in psychotherapy.
2nd slide: “What’s the difference?”
Let’s begin with some (other) important thing: if you ever or your friends or acquaintances are in trouble and you would like to have some help in the psychology field, you need to know that psychiatrists are doctors. They are working in the medical model; meaning, they think that mental issues are chemical imbalances of the brain; they give you medication, nothing else.
…
Of course it’s not black and white always, but mostly.

Psychologist are professionals who are mostly trained for evaluation and treatment (I meant testing – sorry. The author.) They are not really or not always interested in curing things (illnesses) or helping people out.

If you think you need or your family needs psychological solution for psychological problem, that’s what psychotherapist, or counselors or therapist (do.) … They can have Master’s Degree in mental health field, social work or family and marriage therapy.

3rd slide: “Mental/Psychological Disturbances”
This slide I skip, you have it all in the hand outs, if you are interested, please look after that what I do think about different illnesses in very short – hopefully – understandable terms.

(You can find the same in the presentation below. PLease click on the arrow to go forward.)

4th slide: “Origin of Psychological Disturbances”
The origin of these illnesses are almost always – hiow we learned – “multi-determined. So we cannot say that this caused that or that, or that caused that. No blaming of mothers no blaming of genetics. Everything worked together when someone is suffering from something.

5th silde: “’Modalities’ – Psychotherapy Types”
The Modalities of psychotherapy. There are many, many many more. That (list) was just what first came to my mind. Different people are working with different type of therapies.
I don’t go into details.
The most important thing is that… all of the (looking for the right slide, I did not find it) Sorry I lost the right one.

What I wanted to say is that researches show that if the therapist believes in his or her therapy modality and the relationship is good with the client, … there is no really difference between those type of therapies. It is all working, if you are in a good relationship. What every research shows is that the relationship itself what really helps to solve the problems.

6th slide: “Treatment Options”
Different treatment options for the different kind of illnesses.

7th slide: “Jungian Analytic (or Complex) Psychology”
I’ve made a little list of the Jungian psycho-dynamic therapy because this is what I think the closest to the human complexity, the complexity of the human psyche. Most of the time I use this method.

8th slide: “what work in Psychotherapy?
Now here is what I would like to concentrate on today…
So, when you think about going to a therapist, and you think that: OK, so what will be the magic? What will work? How will I understand better? How will I feel better after I leave?
There are many, many, many different elements of the psychotherapy that really works.

First of all before you go: just think about it! You will think through and organize and sort out what you will talk about. It even itself is very helpful.

Many times people keep their… uhm let’s say secret. Even it’s happened with me not so long ago, that I told out something loud for my supervisor which was in the long time kept in secret. I was completely aware of it. Still, I experienced that after I was able to put it together and say it out loud, it had a profound effect on me. It really effected how I was thinking about that event what I was talking about.

So, really, keeping secrets can harm you. I mean, I don’t encourage to share everything to everybody, but sometimes it really can help.

Many times I see that people who are struggling with something, they are afraid that: “Oh it’s surely not normal. I’m crazy.” And you cannot imagine that basically everything is ok. Everything is normal. So we experience so events when feel troubled, confused, we can feel many different way, and it’s all normal.

Just not so long ago I was talking with someone, to whom I said: “yes of course, anniversaries are really hard. It’s everybody, who went through some trauma, the time of the year when the trauma happened triggers lots of stress and…, and depression, anxiety, however you react, but some trouble.

Ventilation of negative feelings I think, especially … important for women, as far as I see. What I see most of the time men likes to find solution as quick as possible, but for women talking about what’s happened, processing, the process itself helps to get rid of the stress.
Clarifying expectations, needs, uhm… what else, values, basic self-awareness is a really important part of every cognitive therapy.

And here come the insight which is my favorite. This is the very focus of my work, to have so… have the clients to see things in the light what they haven’t seen before.

The best analogy what I find is how they call: insight learning. At the time when in America and in Russia … in the middle of the last century everybody was dealing with stimuli- response type of learning Koehler in Germany made an experiment with chimpanzees. The experiment was that in a room they hung up bananas from the ceiling which the chimpanzees could not reach, but he put different size and different boxes all around the room. And what’s happened: They let the chimpanzees in, and after the chimpanzees were looking here and there and around, after a short while they put together boxes, climbed up, reach the banana and get it.

Nobody believed that at time that this is possible, – of course now we know that we are and chimps are way more capable of doing many more things. But this is this kind of insight or similar kind of insight what I love to work in psychotherapy. When you have different memories, different thoughts, different feelings, different evaluations in different spaces of your psyche, in different time of your timeline, and we can put it together see it in a different picture. See something in a new perspective and having more capability to solve anything what causes problem.

We can use all of the others what you can …. here. Jeff just showed me I have to wrap this up…

There are many, many, many others what helps. But all together with a selection of art, what time what is the best to chose from: Now relaxation, now I use a little bit of cognitive, now we try to get some insight. I think it is the best way how we can tackle the psyche and really help people to find rational solution for their emotional problem.

Thank you very much for your interest and for your attention.
Thank you!

Zita

I am an MA psychotherapist in private practice. My goal with this blog to help you solving your everyday emotional difficulties with the help of my psychological knowledge and experience.